Law of Jane
by Harlequin Sequins
Summary: In retrospect, it was a mistake, going to that crash site. But she'd been thinking of Thor, always searching for him, for a way back to him. Now, she's the captive, locked in an icy fortress...and he can do with her as he pleases. Loki/Jane, Jane/Thor.
1. Searching

Author's Notes: Hi all! Brie here. I saw Thor yesterday and WOW. Can I just say that Tom Hiddleston did such a wonderful job with Loki? For some reason, I couldn't get this idea out of my head. So, without further ado, enjoy!

Disclaimer - I do not own the characters Loki or Jane Foster.

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><p>- Prologue -<p>

Out here, it is pouring. The desert turns to brown slush beneath her fingers, sand through the sieve. A shiver gropes down her spine, slow and controlled, rattling her down to the very center of her being. She's still searching for him. She will _always _search for him. Even when she is old and gray and there will no longer be any use left in her and he would look on her with sadness of the most weary and wasted kind. If he ever saw her again, if they ever breached the otherworld borders that separated them.

But even if she could never configure the right algorithm to break through the laws of divine nature and science, feel her way through the tunnels of the afterlife and find him, his golden head wreathed in a halo of light before her. Is there even such thing as a mathematical equation that could shatter the walls of something so far out of human reach, escaping the simplicity of their understanding?

In frustration, she throws down her pen, the collision marked with a dull metallic _thud. _Her fingers rake themselves through the deep brown warmth of her hair, the frayed ends coming loose from the uncoiling bun that's beginning to slither out of its confines of bobby pins and rubber ties. She looks outside, a brief glance, and is surprised to see there are no gray edges of dawn to relieve her of this torturous night. For the first time in hours, she moves from her spot. Her back crackles like a disturbed candy wrapper as she stands, pushing the flat-backed chair with the small force of her movements. She takes a moment to stretch, ease the tension out of the tendons and muscles there, raising her arms over her head and reaching for that big black shield of sky. _It protects them from the horrors of the otherworld_, she thinks, _and yet it's the very protection I'm trying to break through to find him._

The typical Law of Jane, like Erik had once said, when he wasn't prone to that odd seriousness of age he'd taken up recently. _Wherever there is an impossibility, _he'd said to her, warm gray eyes smiling down at her from the helm of wisdom, _the possibility must, and will, be found. That's the law of Jane. _Of course, she'd liked it. Erik had been, and always will be, a father to her. She looks over at him now, snoring into the pages of an old Norse spell book.

She'd tried following the guidelines of the law of parsimony upon developing her first hypotheses. _The simplest explanation is often the correct one. _If the bridge required magic to be opened, then perhaps magic is all there is to it. A simple spell, an archaic incantation, that could at least open the passageways of sound between their world and hers and let her speak to him.

Over and over in her head, she's practiced what she would say. _I've missed you _never had been good enough, though her inherent tendency toward awkwardness and economy of words led her to believe this was the simplest and sweetest of greetings.

He would understand. That she was not a woman who possessed great skills for oration. Simply a scientist, a girl who loved to drown herself in the supple world of books and logic and drift in the tides of stability such rationality brought to her. Life, she thinks to herself, is complicated enough; people are constantly changed pieces to a puzzle she's never been able to figure out for herself, always looking to the very fleshed-out origins of her problem to take care of it for her. She has _other _more important things to attend to, such as her studies, her research, the very reason for living. But as time went on, she began to see that they were only another facet of her troubles, and after the last one, she'd sworn men off for good.

But then he'd come along. And Thor, he had changed everything. He is everything she ever imagined a man should be in god-like form. The ultimate protector, the very essence of what evolution and genetic composition had dictated a man should be like. Courageous and chivalrous, imposing in stature but gentle in nature, and beneath the callused hands the cadenced pulse of a softly thrumming heart that knows nothing if not kindness and honor and the importance of truth. It rolls like thunder through his veins – the determination to protect what is right, even to a stubbornness that she sees in herself.

Weariness laps at the rim of her consciousness, calling her to the creased billows of her sheets. Her eyes listlessly slide in the in-between world, suspended over the black waters of sleep and dreams. But she _can't. _She simply couldn't give up now. Not when she's so close to the answer that she can taste it in every burnt mug of coffee, that lines the undercurrent within every quickly processed thought. She can see it now, dangling over the edge of discovery as she gazes absently out the window. She has to crane her neck to see over the towers of dirty dishes and not enough time to do any of them, but mostly she's memorized every detail of the scenery by now. Dirt and rock and an endless sea of nothing unfurling at the foot of a craggy mountain range like a great brown carpet.

And yet, there is something beautiful about the peacefulness of it all. No people, no cars, no buildings grazing the feet of the sky. Just...nature in her purest form. Untouched, not yet torn apart by human hands and reconstructed to fit their needs. It's only her out here. And Jane, she can feel her all around the outside of herself, trying to touch the inside.

Jane Foster stands at the threshold of great human innovation – for the most selfish and private of reasons. She only wants him. She doesn't want to share with the world what belongs to her and her alone. They needn't know what they could never understand. Erik, she knows, feels the same way. _Let's keep this between us. No one needs to know but us._

When aggravation and doubt invade her every endeavor to focus, she takes a moment to step back, freshen her perspective and clear away the cobwebs of monotony from her head. Sometimes, she thinks they feel more like great black rolling storm clouds, threatening to wash away every last bit of progress she's made. For now, she tries not to think about anything but the scouring of her tired brain; the coffee is getting harder and harder to force down, but there's nothing else here, and even her Foldgers supply is running dangerously low.

She sets the emptied mug down into the sink, sighing, resolving herself to return to her unproductive search once more before surrendering to the human need for sleep.

And that's when she sees it, hears it, _feels _the explosion of the heavens in her every muscle, every blood-pushing vein. For a moment, she's blinded by it, the ignition of white light that tears into the flesh of the earth and rips it open, letting it bleed out as it digs deeper and deeper into the thick crust of terrain. She shields her eyes from the unfolding scene, backing away from the window. Her heart throbs painfully, beating against her chest as if against a cage. _It's him. It's him, Jane. It must be him. He's come back for you. _

"Oh..oh god," she whispers, glancing at Erik, who's as unconscious and dead to the world as ever. "What do I do? _What do I do?_ "

_Go to him! _

Breathless with anticipation, she yanks her boots on and shrugs into her jacket as fast as she possibly can. Even as she practically tears the door off its hinges and takes off in a mad dash toward the site, she can hardly catch her next breath. It's a struggle to make her lungs pump, make them reach for the air. Her legs pound into the earth, feet slapping madly against the loose dirt. She kicks up dust in her wake, whirlwinds of her rush left to twist and sashay behind her. _Thor. I'm coming. I've waited for you. I'm coming…hold on!_

Her eyes are still throbbing from the pain of too much light sucked into them, but she can see the crater, not so far away now, growing closer with every second, every strike of her feet against the ground. Closer. Closer. She's so close. She can feel the dust sticking to her lungs, making her tongue swell, a flurry of it wafting into her nose and tickling the fragile skin there. There it is. It's not so much further, now. She quickens her pace.

"Thor!" She screams into the empty night, barely able to contain the agony of such raw emotion pulsing through her. He's here. He's come. No more waiting like she did all those months for an answer that might never come. _He's come for me. _

At last, she reaches the rim of the crater, and her breath catches in her throat. Her body struggles against the excitement lodged in her throat, blocking the flow of air that it so desperately needs after such a sprint.

But as the dust around the crash site settles, she finds that it is not Thor at all lying in the epicenter. The figure is too slight, too thin. The raven black hair too dark. The face too long and elegant compared to the rugged, bearded features of her Thor. No, it's not him. Her minds screams for purchase on the crippling realization. _No. No!_

She could almost cry, but runs a hand through her wild, liberated hair instead. She didn't even remember losing the pins that held it together._ Where is he? How can it not be him?_

Underneath the moonlight, the creature's skin gleams like fresh snow. Pale and bleached and colorless as bone. It must be a god, she considers. Who else could it be? Perhaps he knows how to reach Asgard, how she can reach Thor. Selfish as her second thought had been, it is the first that propels her into the crater and to the creature's side – _I must help him…he needs my help._

"Sir?" She calls to him, pausing as she realizes she's referring to a god, a genetically advanced being, as _sir. _It seems much too ordinary a term to be assigned to such an extraordinary being. Nonetheless, she doesn't have the luxury of name, so she switches from her careful crouch to a more comfortable kneeling position. "Sir…uh. Wake up. C'mon now, sir, up and at 'em."

But he doesn't wake, not for her voice, not for the pain he must certainly be in, not for anything. She bites her lip, glancing over her shoulder at her R.V. parked at least a mile away. Suddenly she realizes how far she'd gone without even knowing.

A hand seizes her shoulder. She screams, reeling backwards, but the hand is too strong and it doesn't let go. It squeezes her bones, crushes her muscle to fit the form of its iron grasp. Beneath her, the face has awakened, bleary-eyed anguish bursting forth from every crevice and angle and jutting, starved bone in his angular features. They're green…pure, unclouded jade. She finds herself mesmerized by such a stark color. As if she'd never seen it before, as if it had never existed before this moment. Much like she had been taken aback by the glistening clarity of blue in Thor's eyes.

He is losing consciousness fast, much too fast.

"Sir?" She probes again with that ridiculous term, grimacing at the unnatural sound of it against the texture of circumstance. To use such a human word in the company of such otherworldly omnipresence. "Sir, who are you? Did you come from Asgard? _What realm did you come from?_"

At last, his eyes glide over her, taking in the face hovering before him. Recognition floods and overwhelms the question in his gaze. He didn't seem to hear most of what she'd said, picking and choosing the most familiar words in the midst of his delirium. "_What realm is this?"_

Before she can answer, his eyes flutter closed, his face crumpling back into itself, the awareness of it fading fast. His head falls back into the dirt, his raven hair streaked brown with mud. One last aching breath is drove out from his collapsing lungs. For a moment, she freezes, wondering if he's dead. Somehow, through the chaos of panic, she reaches out from her shell of panic and feels for a pulse. _Thud…thud…..thud…..thud. _She measures each beat. He's alive. She expected no less.

She sits back, shock consuming her expression, freezing it in the open vulnerability of hysteria.

And suddenly, it all hits her.

_Oh my god-_

Yes, it must be_. It's Loki._


	2. A Fortress For The Rightful King

Author's Notes: Hey! Here's another chapter. I'm so very sorry it took so long to update but, in my defense, it's about that time for finals and this is the first chance I had to break away from studying and write for fun. Here, we get our first glimpse of Loki, the plot and his plan. Others make an appearance, but I'll let you read instead of explaining it to you. Hopefully you're enjoying this so far. I'm quite nervous of sharing it with you, as I'm not sure of my characterization or how interesting it will be to all of you. Regardless, I'll leave you to read. Enjoy! :)

Disclaimer - I do not own the characters Loki or Jane Foster.

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><p>It's beginning to rain again, sheets of what feels like ice plunging into the back of her neck. Her hair is plastered to her skin. Her ears throb within the cocoon of blistering cold that has seemed to so suddenly sweep down from the heavens and trickle down the parched throat of the desert. Everything and yet nothing had changed. The world remains the same in her volatility, her temperament and routine.<p>

But behind the crumbling walls of that crater, the very foundations of everything she's striven for have been altered. It should be Thor in there, her mind reasons. She doesn't feel the cold. Instead, the cold feels through her, the bare brush of frost fingers probing the length her very marrow.

She staggers back now, bare sock feet sinking into thick clay mud, and her fingers crave the ease of straining through her hair. It helps her think. Helps her calm. Helps her sort through what is lies and what is truth and every shade of gray in between. But it's stringy and knotted by the water creasing through the soggy tendrils. The numbness of shock begins to dilute as her blood thickens with white-heat panic.

"Oh, god. Okay. _No." _She can barely hear herself talking through her man-made hysteria with the racket of rainfall all around her. "This isn't happening. Jane, you're dreaming. This is a dream and this is the part where you wake up to Erik's snoring and a splitting headache. Still Thor-less. Yes, that's what this all is."

It certainly feels real. She's never been one for dreaming much, much too rooted in waking ambitions to devote much time to the mirror images of life that a mind tends to forge in sleep. Sometimes, a blurred, black and white picture will imbue itself to her dreamlessness, stir her dormant imagination, but it is always forgotten in the morning. They are _never _so vivid and life-like as this.

And that's what scares her the most – it _feels _too much like reality. Same tastes, same changeable conditions that the elements of living take to, same relativity of sensation as it applies to individual human perception. Yes, this is what makes her realize the quaking in her isn't just from the cold she's just realized is turning her skin three soft shades of white-blue. She can't be dreaming. It simply _can't_ be. Not that it shouldn't be, but that it truly isn't possible.

"Okay, be calm. Okay," she tells herself, slowly sinking her knees into the coarse mud. "Breathe, Jane. _Breathe_. There is nothing to fear."

_But there is everything to fear._

When her limbs refuse to acknowledge the snapping of her brain's nervous fingers, synapses firing blanks of orders lost to fear-frozen appendages, she moves a little closer to the prone body. The fact that she can feel the radiating heat of flesh that had, in the not so distant past, worked so very hard to kill herself and her beloved Thor helps her stinging fear none.

_Just feel for a pulse. He won't hurt you, see? He's out cold. He's not gonna move, Jane. Don't be silly. It doesn't take a masters in biology to know that a sleeping brain is a harmless one. _

To herself, she nods, appeasing the reason within her (though, in the forefront of her mind, she wonders if these same rules apply to the physiology of the gods).

It has always been this way. She _is_ a scientist. There is no mistaking that about her, even upon first glance. Since her mother bought her chemistry sets and books on the many laws and experimentations in the field of physics, allowing her to stretch out her feelers to the world and the endless potential it hides in secret just for her. Curiosity and the demand for answers has always been a part of her. Even scared as she is by this presence, she must know if he is alive just to sate that hunger that is merely an extension of herself.

The cold has soaked her through. She can feel little rivers of it trickling through her very soul. The sound of wet cloth slapping against cold-hardened skin seems to echo against the soft sounds of rain falling. Her hand is reaching out, now. Of its own volition, fueled by the mechanics of her inherent nature to question, to wonder aloud – in words and in motion.

Then, she touches him. Loki, the god of mischief, the son of Laufey. _Frost giant, _the books had said, and she had found herself expecting something much more than what lay out before her, sprawling, unaware of the conscious world around him. The deep black of his hair glistens within the probing hands of patched starlight and rain. His eyelids are pale and unmoving, not even with dreams. He is all silence and stillness. Assured by his lack of bodily response to her touch, she moves the pad of her finger to the hollow between neck and sweeping angles of jaw line. There it is, leaping outwards into her fingers, only to collide with the shell of skin and bounce back, almost like rubber.

Satisfied, she moves slightly backward, to peer over her shoulder into the cloudy night and call for Erik, hoping only that he will hear her over the sound of his own deafening snores.

It takes only a moment, and that's all that is required. Her hand is captured in the shackles of his grip, her body torn from its position in the mud into the livewire of the moving figure, and she is gone from that pooling desert, the comforting sight of her RV not so far away. Close enough to run to, a rusty old retreat, but now it's gone from her, and she feels as if she is falling.

But when she looks around her, dizzy with nausea, she doesn't recognize anything.

Not the mind-numbing cold.

Not the shaded whiteness of the surroundings.

Not the pale face rimmed in black that swims before her hazy eyes.

Not anything.

Yes, nothing at all.

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><p>He issues a glance of faint disinterest in the direction of his new captive. And to the blue-tinted hoarfrost of the cave he smiles wickedly, the only audience to pay witness to this crime of what the mortals so vainly call <em>kidnapping. <em>

Nonsense, in its purest form, every aspect of it. As if they possess the liberty to assign their negligible existence such notability in term. As if the life of a mortal is anything so valuable to steal away, to hoard like the treasures of the earth. Why, it is merely property, a worthless trinket and a rather unsightly one at that. He should go so far as to call it an object easily manipulated, susceptible to corruption, so readily led astray from resolution, as if they crave it, the aimlessness of a life distorted; all they are in his eyes are sacks of skin filled to the brim with sin and lies and nothing else to atone for such leering iniquity.

Even in his youth, he had found humanity to be a self-destructive, ignorant race. Their monarchs greedy and their methods of self-rule ineffective; their wars senseless and victorious only in the ending of so much life; and their heroes, of whom they spoke so highly, praised to be amongst the greatness of the gods, were merely creatures born into baseless pretention and set upon the pedestal of high expectation from which they fell so low in his view.

Why, it had caused his blood to churn and boil. Their misplaced idolatry, their impractical faith in the useless wasting away of hope. They were no more god-like than the world was flat, as their trite stories insisted in the dawn of their world, before the first light of logic and technology led them from such dim, archaic faiths. They still fall short of the glory of the Aesir. Not even the sound of their imagined eminence colliding with the authenticity of what they truly were – _nothing – _could be heard in the grand halls of Valhalla.

And this is the realm in which he is imprisoned. The very epicenter of him shudders like quaking of the earth at such a dreadful epiphany.

His mind hungers for conquest, for challenge. In retrospect, such a plan as taking the mortal as his borrowed charge had been a trite and uninspired one at best, but he can think of no other earthly possession which would tempt Thor to find an escape from his lingering perch upon the edge of Asgard. The squawking menace, the girl who had, for a time, basked in the shadow of Thor's great love, meant little to him; besides, Loki could hardly stomach the thought of looking after such an inane, maddening, irredeemable creature. The withering old man, quite likely walking in the ill-lit dusk of his days, would no sooner evoke great torment in the god of thunder than a needle prick would open his veins and allow him to bleed.

It is this human girl, this mortal, and her alone that holds the key to Thor's undoing. Nothing else would draw the god into a frenzy of helplessness, into the insanity which comes with being able to do nothing at all to rectify his situation. And the very thought of Thor's torment made Loki smile to himself, a cold, monstrous upward turn of the lips that falls upon the eyes of no one at all. It is how he felt, all his life, and now his _brother, _his supposed _superior _in all things that matter, shall feel the same throb of loneliness and acquiesce to slow decay.

_It_ will require sustenance to live, he recalls with some measure of regret, the eerie grin sinking backward into recollection. This undertaking of his, that he planned so carefully as he slumbered beneath the weeping heavens and awaited her predicted arrival, will have need of menial effort on his part. Why, the only joy of chaos he might take away from this otherwise wearisome task if maintaining the fragile life force of a mortal would be that which he caused in Thor, an effect he could only sparingly look upon himself.

He had considered the possibility of killing her, removing her entirely from his objective in the flick of a wrist and a simple fatal spell, but in the long-run, it would have only summoned a wrath in Thor too great for his slight, deft abilities in hand-to-hand combat to overcome. It may be that he is superior to Thor in intellect, always ahead of him in schemes, in awareness of a situation, but there may never come a time in which Loki will be able to physically devastate him. He is the god of thunder after all, a moniker not earned with such widespread fame by a feeble hand. The only chance he has in vanquishing his opponent is through playing his pieces to their greatest advantage.

But there are _other_, more satisfying ways in which he might tear down the selfish, boorish, unworthy flesh. From the inside out…in the most painful way. If one has the good fortune to possess a knife, they do not aim for superficial wounds, _no. _They aim for the heart, the very core of their foe's being. And this is what he shall achieve.

Therefore, It must live. He will have to care for It, look after Its vital habits, allow It to breathe and sleep and provide It with warmth. This place, this fortress of ice, it will not do for the temperate climate a feeble body such as hers necessitates. However, it is a place that hearkens to his birth, his roots. He has been drawn here by the colorless landscape as it is worlds apart from the immaculate blend of colors that merge and bleed together upon the canvas of the great Asgard. The very thought of the place conceives such anger in him that is not to be borne, not when calculation and composure are so aptly needed here.

Nevertheless, he is an emotive creature. No matter how desperately he wishes he could eradicate all feeling from him, all tearing sensations of betrayal and hurt and jealousy that remove the scabbing callus on his heart, he _cannot_. He had worked so diligently to erect such impenetrable walls, so that the flood of his soul could not reach the weakness of his heart, only to have them fall in the end.

His mind may have no greater match, his abilities in the art of conspiracy unopposed, but it is his heart that fails him every on every account. Silently, behind the security of his own thoughts, he wishes he could remove it completely. But he has no choice; he must suffer its effects as a result.

Without so much as a sound, a rustling of the rime crusting over the snow, his graceful tread moves softly across the bleached earth. He kneels before I_t, _the her, the girl, and narrows his eyes upon taking in the sight of her. What is so very remarkable about this mortal that should enamor the great Thor, should arrest his attentions so fully? Is it so skillfully veiled from him, this grand and salient quality? She is lovely, but he observes with an unimpressed sneer that he has seen faces which possess much greater beauty. In glimpses, he has seen her wide expanse of knowledge, of intelligence, yet these he must judge by human standards, and therefore are low in comparison to his own. There is nothing at all magnificent or altering in perception about her. Loki remains steadfastly unmoved by his adversary's choice.

"As necessity calls me," he murmurs to her, his voice of silk rendered hard and unyielding as the pillars of ice that surround them. "I must, and will, return to you."

He waves a hand over her quiescent countenance, watching it darken and slip further and further into the netherworld of reverie underneath the influence of the spell. She will not wake for anything, not pain or terror of sleep. Not even for the advent of her beloved. She _will_ _not_ wake. He is safe to venture out for a solitary moment, away from his burdensome charge.

The entrance to their small dwelling space is low and narrow, causing him to have to duck beneath the glacial buttresses that gleam blearily in the watery half-light overhead. Within the blue circlet of sky, tucked away in its heavy arms, the sun sets golden fire upon the snow, but imparts little warmth, only a splash of it upon his face as he emerges from the cave. His breath is but an opaque wisp of ghost against the harsh shell of the frozen air. It is a paradise of winter.

It is against the very cusp of this unchanging frost world, this sheeted place of snow and ice and cold, that he feels furthest away from _them. _From those who so erroneously caused him pain, that wronged the great sorcerer in their midst and paid no mind to his efforts to belong to them. They are _fools _and he can barely contain his need to prove to them that he rightfully thinks of them as such_. _They will verily regret every moment they did not cast him out and spare him the agony of withering and dying as a wasted blossom in the shadow of their life. He will make them lament those bygone days, make them _beg _for their return so they can do right by him. But there will be no hope of redemption. It has long since passed, that chance.

Odin first. Odin will be the first to kneel before him and beseech mercy on Loki's behalf. And then Thor. They are the greatest offenders. And they will pay duly for their innumerable offenses. There will be no room for mercy.

Warmth streaks the lines in his gloveless hands. He looks down, breath pouring out of him in terrible stilted gasps, and his eyes pinpoint the source of the change in temperature scattered in blotches upon his skin. Blood. It drips downward, onto the ground, staning the purity of the snow bowing at his feet. His nails have dug too greedily and deeply into the flesh and now the flow of his life slips, unseen and unheard, down the length of his hands, the appendages still gripped in deathly pallor like they always have been. And always will be.

The sight of it captures the entirety of him somehow, leads him down to his knees in a sort of half-kneel, half-crouching position, and he studies the color. It is red, not unlike human blood, but holding a more regal violet undertone that separates it from their vermillion hue. The all too mortal term _blood red _comes to mind and makes him shake with laughter, much to his surprise, and he doesn't know why he is laughing or where the base for his amusement lies.

Only that it is there and it courses through him like black poison. Makes the rage in him curl and seethe and lurch like a shackled demon deep beneath the surface.

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><p>Night has fallen and the wolves which roam this wasted land begin to dissect themselves from the darkness of their retreat; they take their place as the matchless nocturnal predator, and therefore announce the arrival of night.<p>

At the entrance of the cave, he watches. He _waits. _The edges of his body curl inward, directing all surrounding energy to him. His eyes are closed upon the memorized sight of his domain, rising, instead, above the clouds and through the shattered gates of the Bifrost. It commands all of him, a merging of the trinity of mind and body and feeling, to lift him to such impenetrable heights. He is separate from the realm of Midgard; in essence, he stands within the spherical foyer of the gate's doorway. Only by the roots of his physical being is he tied to the human realm at all.

Three figures stand beneath the arched, golden scaffolds of the globe-shaped hall. Odin, King of Asgard, is bent by weariness, wisdom apparent the curve of his brow and the creases of his aged flesh. Another is shouting, the thunderous resonations only felt by Loki as he has not yet fully arrived on the scene, but he knows by the vastness of the figure and the golden features that this is Thor. Heimdall remains true to his post, ever loyal to his place in the realm as guard of Bifrost and Seer over all. Even as the bridge no longer survives, the obligation has not yet perished as a result of its destruction. It is why Thor and Odin are there, he regards this with a smile. They have been informed of the movements of their wayward kin.

Slowly, yet effortlessly, he slithers into the room, the spell providing him with every element of sense in being present there.

The transition brings with it the suddenness of Thor's booming voice.

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><p>" – Father we must find a way into Midgard. She is not safe. We have failed her on that account, and Loki will destroy her and draw out her suffering in the most painful of ways to spite me! We must find a way to aid her."<p>

"There is no path into Midgard without the bridge," replies Odin.

Hearing nothing of what has been said, Thor continues to rage onward blindly in his shouting. "Her death will bring about the end of the search to mend Bifrost and ties between our worlds! Would you so easily relinquish all communication with your most prized creations?"

Odin silences his son with a brandishing of his arm, sweeping it across the length of the room and coating it in a sort of noble tranquility. "You must not let him best you, Thor. Loki is no doubt matchless in intellect, a bright star amongst the gods, but his anger shall cloud his thoughts. We, here, hold the advantage. Where he controls the power of sorcery, we hold the key to his plan. Reaction would prove fatal for the girl. You must cage your emotions. To show them would be to goad him on."

Thor bares his teeth, snarling. "You dare let her fester in his ice prison! You will do nothing to help her!"

"You are too hasty," Odin replies softly. "And because of this, you mistake my intentions. There is much I must do to capture Loki before he wreaks havoc upon their unsuspecting world," he pauses, his hand searching for the other and clasping behind his back, over the folds of his deep crimson cloak. "But there is no other way. Bifrost has been destroyed. It was our only link to their world. I fear we both must suffer, Thor, if only just for now. In a time of war, even the coldest of wars, there must always be sacrifice in the end. We both must watch, helpless, as Loki terrorizes those who have done him no wrong."

"Will you do nothing, old man?" Thor bellows. "Send the Valkyrie! They may travel between worlds as they wish. Send Freyja! Send Huginn and Muninn! I am begging you, father, to help her!"

The King gives no reply, hoping his taciturnity will be enough to end the futile quarrel. In response to Odin's passive cry of surrender, Thor stomps his way across the distance between his father and himself, his expression a fierce and terrible one. The light of his eyes falls, turning to flashing, cruel darkness, and not even the golden radiance of the room may provide a false warmth to cast upon such a cold, malicious shadow.

"Then as I said, you will do nothing to aid her," he seethes, searching his father's unyielding gaze. "You are a cruel man! You create humanity and for what? For the sake of creation? You will do nothing to save them from the consequences of your own failings as a father. Yes, all must bow before the king. Bow to the _righteous_ King of Asgard that you are."

Turning on his heel, Thor storms out of Heimdall's golden nest, leaving the guard and his king beneath the weight of the most painful, audible husk of quietude. Heimdall says nothing, as nothing has been asked of him, and he merely looks out on the empty vastness of space reaching ever onward before him. At last, as Odin watches his angered son return on horseback to Valhalla, he rotates on one graceful heel, coming to rest at Heimdall's side.

In the background, the ghostly presence of Loki remains close by, listening intently to each and every word.

"Can you see her?" Odin inquires, his voice thinned and pained. "If you should look, Heimdall, can you see where she lies?"

"No, my liege," Heimdall replies, the severity of his voice summoning a resonance nearly as thunderous as Thor's. "He shields her and himself from me. Even if we were to have such luxuries as transport to Midgard, we would not be able to find her, as she is well hidden from us."

"Thor speaks from the panic in his heart, not the rationality of thought," Odin explains. "He cannot be held accountable for his words or actions. He is merely troubled, as this girl is dear to him in ways of which we have not been fully enlightened. We have had glimpses, but we do not truly know her significance to him."

"You forgive him easily," Heimdall observes.

Odin, for a moment, is caught in a web of vulnerability, in which he is not so often found. "He is the only son I have left. I will not do him wrong as I have done Loki. I have no other wish than to forgive him."

As the King falls to silence once more, it comes to pass that only two inhabit the gateway, and the presence of which they had been unaware has gone from them entirely.


	3. Set, Game, Match

Author's Notes: Hey all. Here I am with another update. I changed the summary a bit to better suit the tone and plot of the story. Other than that, nothing's changed, so here's the chapter - enjoy!

Disclaimer - I do not own the characters Loki, Thor or Jane Foster.

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><p>When she wakes, it's like being born again – this time into imprisonment. To the hands of shackles around her wrists, their grip wrought with prickly white frost, and when she struggles, rattles the stiff-limbed chains, it's to no avail.<p>

Most human beings would call out for someone, for anyone, but these are the desperate measures reserved for those who can't remember, or who don't know, and need answers. Jane doesn't require any answers. She's well aware of who has her and that's all the information that needs to be taken advantage of when her chances of survival are so low to begin with. Why aimlessly nudge into fate when fate so gently fastens itself flush against temptation? She's here now, there's no obvious way out, and all she can do is wait in the snow. There's no need to hand herself over to her blood hungry captor on a silver platter, not with so much uncertainty pushing her closer into his hands as it is.

She gives her chains another good rattle. They don't budge; they hardly move at all under her tousling movements. Not that she expected them to give with just a useless, hopeless bit of shaking.

_Anymore bright ideas, Jane?_

_Shut up, I'm thinking. Feel free to be helpful at any time. Really, I _insist_._

Knowing her captor, if even just in essence, she's well aware of the cruelly accurate hypothesis that pieces itself very slowly together inside herself, her racing thoughts attempting to swathe understanding around the helplessness of her situation - he would have chosen the strongest of bonds, fortifications that would fall to no immortal hand, much less that of a dwarfish, unimposing human girl.

He is cunning, he is cold, and he is calculating. There will be no likely means of escape, not without patience and precision, perhaps not even with the innermost workings of her mind plunging into the heart of the circumstance to locate the weakest point in the schematics of his design. There's no harm in examining all possibilities for another step ahead of him, though. No harm at all, even if, at the moment, it won't do a damn bit of good.

It's in half accepted surrender that she bows her head, allows her half-frozen body the comfort of going completely slack. _There is no getting out of here, is there? _

All around the half-mast lidded eyes, the bent face is pinched and pulled and torn until it's blue with the heaviness of cold. Her peeling lips chant soft, inaudible things. Things only she can hear and understand and translate for her body to put into motion.

If anyone else were around, maybe they'd think her crazy, look fearfully into a too-close descent, peering down the sloping length of their sane proximity into the depths of her insanity. They'd wonder. All humans wonder – it's in their nature.

But Jane talks when she's nervous – one of many of her unsightly habits that Erik never thought to drive out of her (mostly because he found it endearing and reminiscent of her late father).

It doesn't really matter what kind of words they are, what they mean, and mostly meaning is lost anyway when there's no filter running and nothing careful awake in there. It's a coping mechanism. Talking is a form of reason. It's a method of making it through.

The little voice in her head scolds her as she sits there soaking up a sopping wet case of hypothermia like a human sponge - _think of something other than the cold, Jane. _

Well, the first thing she can care to remember – which isn't so far back as she'd like with all this cold shutting down her senses, dulling them –is the first time she saw Thor donning his shirtless look and how utterly _magnificent _that had been. And how – she only finds this stalled image of so many yesterdays ago by squinting her eyes, penetrating the recollection a little deeper – he'd _pranced _across that room. Poised and inhumanly tall and graceful despite the bulk of him.

He'd moved with the natural silk-lined steps of a dancer who knows her footing, who lets herself unravel like a spool of thread when she looses herself and the swell of the dance moves for her. He didn't just walk, didn't blindly lead his gangly limbs forward like she did, but _waltzed - sashayed. _Despite the airless quality of his feet, he'd always been in tune with her every need, every concern, every surge of fury. She remembers.

The exact thing she'd said to him couldn't be recovered from that fleeting moment, not after so much time passed and with so much pressing down on her, crushing her to the crisp snow. But the look of blankness conforming to the chiseled angles of him is as clear and sharp now as it if she were reliving it. His distinct lack of understanding in her chattering presence, when he listened to her prattle on about that certain something – _that _could not be forgotten even by her most unconscious state of being. It roused up in her a stilted little laugh, one that blew out of her with what felt like the last of her body heat.

Whatever it had been that she'd rambled on about was long forgotten by the both of them, but its effects remain a good indicator of the level of ridiculousness she'd displayed for him. She'd been unafraid to show him who she truly was, a decision that she isn't so sure even now she'd come up with consciously, but it had been made nonetheless.

He'd accepted her warmly despite the humanity of even her most secretive temper, nurturing for her a fragile trust in him, and still it bloomed in her; it had never lost its potency even after he'd gone. Newborn and bright and unafraid it was, and is, of the fear of withering away without him near. It latches onto all of her paper-thin hopes – just _seeing_ him again. One last look, if that's all she could ever have of him. Breathing him in and feeling him close and knowing everything will be okay because he's here and he completes the half-circles she's lead herself into.

It's not that she can't go on without him. But that with him, she moves a little faster, can think her way through the heaviest bouts of a mind clouded with doubt and unkowing. Her feet wouldn't feel as if they were caked in blocks of concrete if he could just be there, looking down over the thin shadow of her shoulder, speaking aloud his invasive, unassuming questions.

It's everything that kept her going. She settles into it now, the form of it, the ghost of him fashioned out of that residual hope. It's a weakness, _he's _her weakness, there's no doubting that. Her captor will find it in her. But it's better than having nothing at all. It calms the crippling fear which seizes the airless lungs inside of her and kneads her flesh prickling with nervous, bloated blood.

The very thought of Thor feels warming, like microwaved coffee on a rainy afternoon, or wind-chapped fingers seeking the balmy shockwaves rolling off a fire pit, and she remembers the way the broad map of his body felt unfolded and bare to her small hands; his lips as they moved with noble words and the gentlest kisses, framed in the blonde bristles of his beard; the promise imbued into his taste that inched into her senses and filled them up to the rim with a bursting intoxication of fresh blossom love.

How utterly _insignificant _she'd felt enveloped by him. As if she was nothing but the breath of wind upon the earth, the one that shuffles away the dust in the desert and impales the sharp rain into the grass.

She tries to hold onto that memory, onto the dreamed up feeling of his deep, encompassing warmth, and the lull of it drives her into a fitful, half-frozen sleep.

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><p>"<em>Jane.<em>"

Her eyes nearly pop out of their sockets at the sound of the voice. For a moment, she stops breathing, quiets her noisy lungs, and only her stubborn heartbeat could be heard amongst the softly creaking sheaths of ice all around her. Her mouth hangs open to the air. She remains completely still, praying that she will hear it again, that blessed voice, that _beautiful _thunderous timber.

"Jane, where are you?" It calls again. "Are you near?"

She struggles against her confines. "Here!" She replies, shouting into what seems to be only the company of the blank white snow. "I'm here, Thor!"

God, she could almost cry. She could almost break in half and out of her would pour the flood of unshed tears. Her chains rattle, her body alive with desperation with the sound of his heavy footsteps not so far from where she sits half-buried in snow drift. _Hold it together, you. Don't you fall apart on him. _

He appears and her heart nearly explodes from the force of such a sight rushing toward her. The impact of every hope she'd ever salvaged for his sake colliding with the surface of reality leaves her, carrying with it his name. "Thor!"

He's unchanged. Every inch of skin available to her eye untouched by age or weariness and the mulish twinkle in his startlingly blue gaze still intact. She can barely wait to hold him, drag the thickness of his arms around her soft, yielding body and for a second she can imagine the possibility of never letting him go.

A deep, relieving breath escapes his half-open mouth, and he closes his eyes for only a fleeting moment in silent gratitude to whatever deity might be in charge of her fate that day. "You are safe, Jane," he seems to be begging of her, seeking assurance. "You are not harmed?"

"No," she tells him, and her cheeks hurt but she can't stop grinning madly at him, nor can she purge the thrill of having him so close to her again. "No, Thor, I'm all right. See? No blood. Well, not that I can tell. I don't feel any pain."

"Then all is well," he says, breathless, eyes falling, and hers are drawn to the hand that reaches down and clutches the side of him. "All is well," he repeats dully, almost to himself.

Wordlessly, she watches him tumble down into the supple white ground, only his arm preventing the shattering that would surely come if he were to collide with solid ice earth.

She comes to realize that the hand on his side had never moved from the moment he first appeared before her. It doesn't move now, even as she locks all her awareness on it, examines it, the hand fisted into the soft curve of his belly. The blunt, taut angles contort the callus-roughened dips and bends of the knuckles, pulling them so far back that they begin to pale from lack of blood and turn to white-boned mountains. The filmy skin disappears beneath a stain of red. It's no slow realization that he's bleeding.

It's a quick procession.

She screams.

He falls.

And a wicked laughter skitters across the cave.

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><p>Her head lurches backward, then forward, as if she were being dangled upside down. Nausea sinks into the depths of her like black poison, trickling into every untouched alcove of her being, until she thinks she'll be sick - <em>surely, <em>she'll be let go.

"Ah, ah now," comes a very soft, very slick and oily voice. "You wouldn't want to soil my new _carpet _now would you?"

The feeling passes, only to be replaced by a new one. Recognition. Wide-eyed, throbbing, _painful_ fear. She forces herself to look up, through the glass image of her Thor lying bleeding and dying and just out of reach before her, and it will never leave her head. It sticks to the walls, a pin-up of her worst fears realized, and there it will remain until she sees him again, safe and sound and _all hers._

"There there now, little Jane." Footsteps move closer to her, sizing her up. She can feel them measure her, taking stock of everything she was, is and will be with the eyes attached to those slow strides that stain the snow with black vigilance, malice curling underneath its watered down shadow. They stop, and in her line of sight is a pair of black trousers, long, graceful pillars of legs giving them shape to lean on.

And then, he's there, his face close to hers, the jade eyes restlessly moving with tireless thought behind their glisten of hungry searching. The gears of an ever moving, ever wakeful mind turn and she can almost hear it working, sense its prying fingers stealing into her soul and reading its carefully obscured contents with fluid ease.

"Worry yourself no more with plaguing dreams," _he _says, and the face of Loki, god of mischief, twists and coils in on itself with a malformed smile. "_I'm _here now."

There is only one thing on her mind, and it thrusts itself shamelessly on him. "_What have you done with him?"_

The terrifying expression collects itself back into the cold void of its maker, and he looks into her again, probing for her full attention. "_Him_?" he questions, lips caught in a leer, and he inclines his head. He is _mocking _her she realizes. "If it is an answer you seek then you _must _be more specific, my dear."

"Thor," she says forcefully, struggling again against her brutally cold chains. "_Where _is he? What have you done to him!"

An empty gesture of innocence seizes Loki's entire figure, and if it weren't for the unfurling snake of malice stealing through the underbrush in his eyes, she might have believed its sincerity. "Me? Surely I have done nothing - not with him so far out of my reach."

It takes a very long, very artless moment, but it dawns on her at last. This, she sees, is a game. All of it cleverly devised and every detail meticulously planned out to serve his advantage. She is merely a pawn, a plaything, and her pain is his objective. _Jane, don't let him get to you. What you saw is probably only a conjured up image of what he __**wants **__you to see. Don't believe anything he says. He's a liar. Don't listen to him, Jane. Stay vigilant._

"I'm surprised, you know," Jane says, switching out her gullibility for tactic.

"Oh, _are _you now?"

"Don't you wanna know what I'm surprised about?"

Expression loosening, its springs lax, he unbends his knees and stands and to see his face she has to strain the the frozen muscles in her neck backward."I'm afraid I'm not quite in the mood to be _bored _by human digressions."

"I'm surprised this is the best plan you could come up with," she continues. "I expected better from the supposed _god_ _of mischief_."

He raises an eyebrow at her, instantaneously intrigued by this new direction, and she can see it plain on his face. "And what did you expect?"

"Let's just say any brain-dead thug could snatch a girl when she's not looking," Jane replies evenly. "Only _cowards _do that sort of thing."

"Ah yes, it seems you've –damn, what is that quaint little human phrase? Oh yes - _hit the nail on the head," _he starts pacing around her, the look in his eyes almost blood hungry - cruel and dark and sharp against her. "I have underestimated your powers of observation. How _silly _of me. I should try much harder next time to impress you."

"Yeah, I've _definitely_ overestimated you."

"You haven't seen _anything _yet, darling," he says, but his voice never breaks, never rises or falls beneath its smooth, flat tone. "Why, our little game has only just begun. You are perhaps the size of a dwarf and lack the proper skills to overpower me in a physical conflict. Besides, where would the fun in that be? I would so easily _win, _even you are aware of this fact. Yet, we are both renowned in our separate worlds for our intellect. It would be far more diverting for a battle of wits than that of brawn, where I so obviously have the advantage."

"I don't know about what goes on in _your _world, but in mine – people look out for each other," Jane retorts. "In fact-" She stops herself as Erik is summoned to her, the soft warmth of his grey eyes smiling down at her, though the age-worn lines of his face are twisted with concern. "_Someone _is probably looking for me as we speak."

"Yes, and I'm sure they'll find you – _eventually," _he says. "But while we're here, let's think _logically. _You're shackled to a cave carved entirely out of a colossal iceberg, tucked deep into the arctic tundra, and no one but _me _knows our precise location. You are, and will remain, my prisoner. That is as long as you remain useful to me. As long as you continue to entertain me. The moment you grow tedious is the moment you learn just how _imaginative _I can truly be."

"You just watch, Loki," she taunts him. "I'll win your little _game. _And we'll see just how _smart_ you are."

"We'll see," he dismisses her nonchalantly, folding his hands, watching with interest as their creases deepen with the sinuous bowing of them.

"Yes, we _will _see."

"Since I am a fair contestant," he continues blandly, nearly disinterested, but she sees the dangerous spark flaring in him. "I must warn you, and it would be prudent of you to heed my cautioning - this is no match easily won, Jane. You must resist with everything you have. For if you are not victorious over me, the loss which you will suffer will be too great for you to bear."

"I'm not afraid of you."

"Let us hope that you learn to fear. It's a healthy emotion, Jane. No one is spared from it. Not even I am. Not even _you_."

He moves in closer to her, predatory in his flowing, melting motions, and he is so close to her now that she can see the demon peering out of the depths of him in his eyes. It smiles at her, baring its jagged teeth.

Quickly, he moves. Fluidly as a cat, gliding his fingers against the slight drop that gapes in between the jutting curve of her jaw and the flat planes sloping into her neck. He seizes it suddenly, without warning taking it in to a cruel and choking hold, and it is on the high, sweet note of her first spiking fear that he slides himself into the draping form of a victorious smile.

"You learn quickly," he whispers, his lips close to her ear, and she can smell all of him – the sweet, sultry incense of the deep burning fire of soul peppered with tasteless snow. She tries not to breathe, not to move, as he violates every last barrier of space between them.

Composure slips on its own confidence, its steady feet dragged out from underneath itself as the point of his nose presses deeply into the throb of her pulse, breath spreading its heavy, hot fingers across her aching skin, and his fingers knot in her hair as he tears her head back, positioning his lips against the raised flesh of her throat.

"Let's see how truly loyal to Thor you _really_ are_," _he threatens – yes, that's the only word that can describe such a mercilessly uttered speech, and she has forgotten where the confidence slipped, the exact moment where her power was stolen from her and his rose up in the ashes of it.

"Jane," he speaks, breathes, _moans_ into her with the cruelest smile ever known. "Oh sweet, _sweet _little_ Jane_."


	4. A Small Price To Pay

Author's Notes: Here's chapter four! I'll reply to all of your lovely reviews as soon as I can. Thanks for reading! :)

**Edit: Hey guys! I went back and edited everything a little bit, and I edited out some of the gratuitous description. I have a bad habit of getting too descriptive cause I let myself ramble even in my writing, so I'll try and be a little less long-winded next time! Also, there will be more action in the next chapter. **

Disclaimer - I do not own the characters Loki, Thor or Jane Foster.

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><p>He dangles off the edge of his bed, as if suspended over the jagged face of a very narrow, very tall cliff. It feel as if, underneath him, there is no solid ground on which he could fall. He would fall forever if he should let himself go. And he's so close to that dreaded falling, that human sense of plummeting, that he can feel that emptiness of gravity in his stomach.<p>

Hands over his eyes, his nails dig into his face, clawing downwards. It's as if they're trying to tear down something truly terrible from the walls in his head.

She stands in his doorway, looking tired, and her hands are clasped in front of her. "Thor, I wish for you to see a healer about this. It is not a matter to take lightly."

"And I wish you would not worry," he replies.

"It is my place to worry," she says softly, perching on the end of his bed, putting an arm over his hunched over back in a comforting gesture. "I am your mother."

"They are only dreams."

"They are _poison," _she insists. "When did you last sleep?"

"This night past," he says, guarding the dark shadows under his eyes. Frigga's inquisitive face searches him with concern.

"If you do not go to the healers, I will send them to you."

"Do what you wish, mother. You are in charge of your own will," he sighs, pulling himself away from her motherly grip. "I hold no sway over you."

He escapes the room, feeling as if he is chased by a pair of dark jade eyes.

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><p>They keep coming after him in the black hours between dark and day and steal into the holes in his rest. They're too nondescript in waking to be feared, colorless and meek under the light, but within the potent dusk they feed on the blood of his hope. They become fat with darkness until they're bulging with it. It's only then that they are strong enough to wield their nocturnal powers. And they always win beneath the moon, as the moon aids them, conspires with reverie – she pours into them with her silver light the malice of reality.<p>

He's never had such terrible dreams. Never in his life has he feared closing his eyes for even a moment, the exhaustion, and soon the fear begins to tug more and more on Frigga as well. After her first confrontation, she keeps her promise - she sends them, but it is to no avail.

Thor sees it in his mother's face. The longing to go to him and heal him of all the unseen terrors herself. But no matter how hard she's endeavored to save her last son, how many healers she sends, she can't salvage him. He's gone too far into a place her gentle nature can never follow; she doesn't know the whispers of devils.

Thor puts distance between them, to keep her safe from Loki's poisonous reach. This only worries her more.

_She's opened up and bleeding out, and the figure standing over her does nothing to repel the snow which soaks up the vital red rivers of her. The shadow's hands reek of her insides, plunging into the guilt of her blood, and it only seems to stand there, counting the seconds until she's fully torn from her human body. Another moment and she's beyond even the most skilled practices of faith and healing._

_Without Mjolnir, he has only his brute strength to inflict damage upon this figure. His fists tighten against the curling rage, rigid teeth set, jaw slipping forward and made up into an hard animal frame. Every intention points directly to murder, to kill - a compass pointing in the wrong direction. _

_But as he strikes outward, tries to pin down this formless thing that has taken his Jane away from him, the being turns, and he stops._

_It's his own face he's staring deeply, sightlessly into – a ghost, a life-like ghost, and he is lost._

Thor waits.

He waits for reason, for his undoing, for the desire of peace.

And he does not know how long he will have to wait.

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><p>Loki had always been one to study first, examine everything until he had reached the origin of his opponent's secret desires, uncomplicated secrets and darkest pleasures. It is in the innermost tangles that congregate to become a soul, a spiritual engine of a being, in which the most human aspects of a person are stored. Once inside, he may find the fault lines, the fissures that mar the perfection all creatures search tirelessly for.<p>

He is all too aware that it is implosion which wreaks the most havoc, where towers of men crumble into minds of rubble. It is the least expected where battle and war and bloodshed is worshiped as an abstract god. They may never detect such a slinking, silent torrent of destruction to be unleashed upon them. They turn their undivided attention toward the war cry, the clash of brandished sword and the cracking of bone, never taking into the feelers of their sensation the fluid consistency of the wraith sifting through their every lie, every truth, and everything that is sullen gray ash in between two great passions of intent.

Patience quickly became a most effective tool in this process of what was often a very slow excavation. It is the final swan song that lulls his pacing darkness into a dormant endurance, a lullaby for the wicked – and the hunger quiets long enough for the prey to come to him.

Some who observe from protective shields of distance keep their uninvited confidence within them, bury them, for they feel as if they had imposed their intelligence on another unsuspecting secret-keeper - one who did not know they had been inconveniently discovered.

Loki is a creature apart from them, like velvet is from glass. To the sharp cruelty of him, once it had unearthed weakness, there was no choice but to act upon that fault, let it struggle and squirm and the seams of control would wear down beneath the whittling of his dominance. All pleasure exhausted, his plaything broken, Loki would discard the haggard _thing_. And he reigned champion over all games of intellect.

Here, now, he waits. A coiled thing, a spring in rest, waiting to pounce upon any fault line he could see in this _captive _of his. It is a fairly unbroken surface for a human entity, bringing forth little to his careful eye, but he has also seen too little of it besides its arrogance and contempt to base this impartial judgment upon.

The only failing she seems to share so openly with him is that of her love for Thor and her fumbling clumsiness in the art of subtlety. Thor is already being tended to and Loki grows bored tormenting him, after so many long centuries of preying on his feeble warrior's brain. It is so very _easy, _as it has always been, for Thor to melt into his hands like molten flesh.

It is his hope that this mortal will prove more of a challenge for his deft abilities in wearing down the honorable intentions of a proposed hero, the _ant_ upon the pedestal.

It has always been that Loki was undermined as a giant, for instead of celebration of his conquests separate from Thor's, he has been pushed aside, his pedestal forgotten, never forged in the minds of even his equals; it was always Thor brushing the skin of the clouds, with Loki below, staring into frigid darkness.

The _loneliness_, it was unlike the solitude he had once desired, and soon even the act of solitary existence became hated to him, grew charred and twisted to his eyes as a mangled, evil thing. He pushed away the silence of his aloneness, feared the blind eye of his father, and fed slowly upon the golden halo of Thor, hoping to ingest understanding, to awaken his own sleeping light within him so that he may glow like his beautiful, loved brother. He became a _parasite, _but that he is no longer.

No _longer _will this propose a problem for him. Solitude has been accepted back into his good graces out of necessity. One cannot _think _with so many suspicions pressing upon them, digging inquiries into shallow graves in him, and whittling away at his tolerance. They will all remember and fear that remembrance.

No matter, he knows it will all come to pass with persistence and resilience to the native frailties of flesh. It is no easy feat, winning a battle – even one of physical means. One cannot fall to his own devices in the midst of victory.

Perhaps it is why he put the mortal back into the deep sleep. _It's _lack of silence had become too much to bear for even his mastery of longsuffering. It rattled its chains, screamed to the ice as if in supplication to free her, but it only froze her chains into solidity even more. Often, it would turn its panic upon him, hysteria colored with insults and emasculation, and she called upon him to _fight her like a man. _

He recognized this as merely the sheer mindless terror, as that of a cornered animal will often demonstrate as a response to the sight of its own death looming ever nearer, so close that she can touch the hem of its robes. The insanity all too soon takes root with no end to the fear and no respite and never a shred of mercy to be found – not even the numb stillness of death. Only exhaustion permits relief.

_If only there were a matched opponent present for me to fight,_ he had said to her, drawing himself erect from his sitting position in the snow. She had shrunk a little, her tallness fading as it had only been an illusion fashioned by hollowed out words, the guts of them torn out by the realization that he, in all ways, was the dominant one. The supreme one. The monarch of her fate.

_Bring him forward to me and I shall have words with him, _he'd said to her, and with a small, aching pleasure he'd watched her eyes grow round and the whites of them overrun the soft, inviting mellowness of the brown. He'd touched his fingers to her temple. She'd gone out like a candlelight, silenced by a forceful gust of wind.

Now, it is all tranquil soundless stupor, and he breathes it, wades through it, savors each crack of the ice that resonates as if against stone throughout the white fortress.

He closes his eyes for a long time, that unmindful quirk of the lips curling into the dark corner of his mouth, and enjoys the feeling of being entirely alone again for the first time. He can hardly recall the last time he had felt such quiet against his skin, memorized every mark upon her own flesh, moved within and against her like a lover would. And it is a rhythm he'd imprinted into the memory of sensation, the sway and fall of her muted contentment in his presence.

Having taken in his fill, the rounded husk of his lids peel back, disappearing into the line of lashes and the harsh confines of skull. He looks at her, doesn't melt away in meekness like most do, but watches her every inhalation and the exhale of used up oxygen that follows. He studies each concave of her body and the shadows that they throw. Her face, the rumpled clothes over her abdomen that bend with her sitting position against the back of the ice, the incredibly thin legs stretched out before her – nothing is left out of scrutiny. His observations render nothing he has not measured before: her physical inability to overpower him.

And the idea of the sense strikes him, that he should familiarize the essence of her with every awareness of his body. He has seen all of her, what lies open to his gaze that is, and has heard her voice, her disjointed flux between the angered captive, the clever victor and the hopeless prey.

But he has not touched her since he pulled her close and tore her from that river of melting sand in the desert. It had been such a quick relocation that he had no time to _truly _feel her, memorize her warmth. Perhaps it would give way to no useful reason, but he could see no harm in an attempt.

He stands from his meditative repose, inching close to her, expression distant and bordering upon distrust. She won't wake unless by his hand, but there has always been some measure of vigilance in him. It's always roving and attentive of everything that molds his surroundings, ready to strike anything that may endanger him at any moment. It is a defense mechanism of his that he never wished to disengage, as it is always a useful tool in the dismantling of humanity in even the most inhumane of people.

Now, it is a small burden, one he balances on his shoulder with ease, and he slowly places his hand upon her forearm. His palm flattens against her, of its own volition, and it seems to thaw within the cradle of her warmth. Cold Jotun flesh quarrels with the supple heat of mortal skin. And it is nearly too late before he realizes he is enjoying the contact.

He tears it away, glancing up at her with narrowed eyes, and then stands almost too quickly, his head tumbling headfirst into a hazy spinning. Nauseated, he turns on his heel, heading straight for the wall, and he relishes the numbness that spills into him of having no body to be anchored to at all.

* * *

><p>When she comes to again, raises her chin up from her chest, she first hopes its to an empty place, one in which she can sit and plot her escape without those probing jade eyes watching her every move.<p>

But really, in all fairness, she should know better than this. It would be too close to underestimating him and that, too, was a dangerous threshold to be crossing. She'd read a little about him in the attestations, when her tireless search led her into archaic scripts and the lonely explorations of a woman who knows nothing but books and text and statistics. They'd advised her, all of the words blending together into one embellished warning – _don't turn your back on him at any moment lest you want to find a knife in it._

And silly Jane, that is exactly what she'd done – ignored the admonishments of ancestors for only a transient glimpse of a second and he _had_ her. She imagines Erik is nearly out of his mind with worry, having woken to a very lonely little cabin, and she can only begin to think of the immense scolding she's going to receive from him once she's somehow returned to him. In many ways Erik is a father to her – this angry parent role she will have to face on seeing him again being only one facet of that paternal correlation.

Once her eyes adjust to the scathing white surroundings, the sleep blinked fully out of them, they settle on a crumpled sort of figure stationed before her. It's _him_. Who else would it be? If it were anyone else, she'd be freed by now, perhaps not even in this miserable little ice cave, and perhaps there'd be salve on the chafed skin of her wrists, which she guesses would break to bleed soon with all the unnecessary rubbing she's been inflicting on them as of late.

At first glance, he might've been marble. Solid white and black and green marble. But it's too frighteningly life-like to be mistaken for glassy stone, as he still breathes, and his fingers are moving thoughtfully in a sort of ticking motion over his rose-pink lips. He's very deep in thought, but she knows not to mistake him for detached, as she can see the sharpness of cognizance rimming around his eyes.

"I know I'm not going to like the answer but…" She clears the cobwebs from her throat, the ones that collect from little use in so much time. "What _are _you doing?"

"Is it not obvious what I am doing?" He asks, a mock incredulity marking the timber of his voice. "I am guarding what is mine."

She doesn't bother to correct him, more curious as to his actions than the purpose which stands behind them. "Yes, but what are you doing _here_. Don't you have some evil mischief making to plan out or something?"

"Why, am I _bothering_ you?"

"Yes_." _

Something unrecognizable takes hold of his expression, grinding it and kneading it into the consistency of splinters. "Remove your clothes."

She nearly chokes on her words as they fly up from her throat and into her mouth. "_Excuse _me?"

"Remove them or I'll simply make them disappear," he replies evenly, and the sneer underlining his every syllable is almost too much for Jane to bear quietly. "And where would the fun be in that?"

"I'm not going to just strip right in front of you-"

He raises his fingers, poising them to snap. "Suit yourself then."

"All right!" She holds up her hands defensively, and he stops with an innocent countenance, almost doll-like in fragility. "Okay, okay. I'll do it. Can you just…turn away? So I can have some privacy?"

He smirks a little, dark eyes twinkling. "I'm afraid that little ace is not in the cards."

"Any explanation for this?"

"Only that you talk far too much for a woman."

"And I could say that you exert your masculinity far too little for a man."

A barking laugh escapes his lungs, and the stillness trembles beneath the heaviness of such dark mirth. Her filthy, rime-scented clothes disappear, just as he'd promised, and her hands fly to her chest to cover herself and her legs contract to obscure all from him. But not before he'd seen enough for the redness of humiliation to flare up in her face.

The laughter softens into that of a low chuckle. His gaze is wrought iron, hard and cold and gilded silver in the harsh revealing afterglow of ice. She shudders under the weight of its influence.

He moves closer to her, running his fingers up the cold length of her arm and summoning the goose bumps of his touch with them. Licking his lips, the pink of his tongue clashing against the ashen complexion, his dark jade eyes trail up her bare skin. They flicker up to meet hers, a cruel clarity in them. "I think," he murmurs, softly, but not without coldness. "It would be best if you learned to hold your tongue."

She glares back at him. "You first."

"I will only provide you with new clothes if you behave yourself, my dear little dove."

"I'm not your dove."

"Oh, but you _are," _he replies. "Caught in my icy web you most _certainly_ are. And what a shame that you walked so mindlessly into my trap. Here I thought you were an intelligent mortal, but how wrong was I? At least.." he pauses, trailing his finger down her neck, following the path of her pulse down to the naked collarbone. "You still have your beauty to recommend you."

She swallows hard, unnerved by his proximity. Never has he been this close to her before – it takes apart all courage in her as easily as if it were a puzzle, scattering the pieces and watching them as they are carried away into the wind. The way he stares down into her feels like he can see everything – all of her in her basest form. It sets the teeth of her nerves on edge, ready to bite. If she could she'd lash out at him, the jaws of her small might against his predatory advances.

But she can't – her hands and legs are chained back. She's cold and overpowered.

"What, no witty rejoinder from our caged bird?" He teases, thumb pressed into the hollow of her collarbone. "No sweet song to tempt a little kindness from her captor?"

"There's no kindness in you," she snaps back at him. "You're not capable of it."

"_Try _me." He whispers into her jawline.

"So to get some clothes I have to be _nice _to you?"

"Why, is it so much to ask in return for generosity?"

"Clothes are a necessity."

"Perhaps they are to _your _self-conscious, pathetic race," he mutters into the shell of her ear, nipping at it, hoping to break a levy of desire somewhere in her. The tremors and deep intake of breath draw out a leering smile from him. "But in my view - clothes must be earned. They are but a luxury and nothing more than that."

Her teeth are chattering. "What do you want then…"

"A kiss," he replies simply. "A fair trade for preventing hypothermia, don't you think?" He whispers into her ear. "Think of it, Jane. All of that _warmth _a body can produce for another."

"I'd rather die than kiss you," she says. "But thanks for the _humble _offering."

"My offer is anything but humble."

"I won't do it."

He pulls away, and she watches that knowing look flit about him. "Ah, yes, that's right, draw out your suffering like a _good_ _little_ _martyr_," he probes her, eyes boring into her. "The longer you stick to your delusions of loyalty and strength and that inherent goodness you pride yourself upon, the less time you have to live. I would so despise the thought of you and Thor never reuniting because of your stubbornness to yield to my simple policies."

He touches her inner thigh and warmth springs up in that small patch of skin. He drags his hand down the length of it to her knee, holding it in place. His face is mere inches from hers, watching her every blink, every thought behind her eyes. She struggles for purchase on her restraint, on all ties to resilience, and the evenness of unruffled breath.

"All right," she says.

The safe word unlocks deep in him a cage, and from it lurches forth a primal beast. He presses his lips together, as if he means to press them to hers, slamming her into the wall so forcefully she'd sure it would crack beneath them. He slides his hands up her unclothed sides, her entire body exploding with warmth, the pressure of restraint no longer present as she recoils from his touch. By the time he releases her from the brutal embrace, she's sweating, thick beads of it sticking to her and her cheeks blotched red as if with sunburn.

She opens her eyes, looking up at him as he traces her forehead softly, like a lover would. All she can think of how _close_ she had been to his mouth.

"You will come to find that unlike your precious god of thunder I _keep _my promises, Jane," he whispers gently to her, and he wipes his thumb across her bottom lip, a sharp smile tearing into the watering doe eyes. She realizes now, all too suddenly, that she's clothed and clean and warm and the cold cannot touch her from here.

_A small price to pay for clothing and a little comfort._


	5. Loophole

Author's Notes: I know there's probably not a lot of people out there that remember this exists, but hey! I figured I'd post this update just the same. I've decided to change it to Jane's POV, since she's so lulzy and adorable and fun to write, so I'll go back and edit the rest of the chapters to fit this new POV change. If you do remember this story exists, and haven't yet given up on me, then I do hope you enjoy this long overdue chapter. Thanks for sticking with me!

Disclaimer - I do not own the characters Loki or Jane Foster.

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It's never been like this for me – to give up so easily. But here I am…stuck at a dead end and there's no off ramp (this isn't a freeway, Jane, who knows where the hell Loki has taken you?). My arms are locked in a painful twist behind me. Hours of tugging and pulling and beating on the shackles has left its mark. I don't think I've ever been this miserable - bruised and half-frozen and my brain is quiet for the first time since…well, since before I can remember. Have I ever been unable to think my way out of things? No…no this is a first for me. There's a whole list of things I'm not. Coordinated? Check. Able to form a cohesive sentence in the presence of strangers? Check again. I'm Jane Foster. I draw stick figures on dinner napkins and eat cereal in my socks out of mixing bowls and I can always think of an escape plan. But here I am – blank. Completely empty. I never knew that silence could be such an effective form of torture.

I throw my head against the tower of ice rising up behind my back.

"God, Jane, what have you gotten yourself into?"

Silence. The echoes whisper through the tunnels, hard and sharp like the ice that throws them back at me, but there's nothing else. No smooth, poisonous reply from my captor. Not a murmur of life in my head. God, what have I done? Why did I have to go out in the rain like an _idiot_and get myself captured? Again, like an _idiot._

_Because I thought it was Thor._

_Because you let your guard down, you idiot._

_Face it Jane – you're an idiot._

If I were _that_type of girl, I could cry. I'd let all the tears that have my heart wrenched in a vice grip freeze on my cheeks and make them sting with the salt in the hoarfrost. That would be punishment enough for my stupidity.

"For such a smart girl, you make _really_bad decisions."

Again, nothing. As if insulting myself would get the gears working. But they seem to be frozen solid – like everything else in my body. Is my blood even moving anymore? I shake my arm a little. Don't be silly, Jane. If your blood was frozen your heart wouldn't be beating.

Frustration wells up instead of tears. I squeeze my eyes shut and shake the chains again, testing the strength of the icy clasps around my swollen red wrists. If only I had some Neosporin for those…

The sounds of my struggle can be heard throughout the cave, but still there is no sign of Loki.

"_Damn,"_I hiss through gritted teeth, letting one single chatter free. Nope, they won't budge. I'm _stuck_here.

If only I could _think_with all this cold pressing down on me. It feels claustrophobic, like I can't breathe, and the world is a big sheath of ice crushing me down into the snow.

_Okay, Jane. Don't think about the snow. Just think about something else._

A dark, secret voice pops up out of the blue. _You could think about Thor…that would get you warmed up._

My cheeks flush.

_No. Not here. It's not safe to think about Thor._

It's stupid to hope for Thor to come to my rescue anyway. Like he had, once, haloed in scarlet with the sun catching on his golden hair. Like Prince Charming in those books mom used to read me, when I was little.

But he's not coming. I know better. He's as much a prisoner to his world as I am to this cave.

I'll have to rely on myself this time.

**_For once._**

_Shut up. No one asked you._

If only I could find a way out of these chains_…_

_._

_._

_._

"I heard you talking to yourself again, mortal."

I open my eyes. Had I fallen asleep again? _Damn._

Around me, the ice has seemed to pull back, receding like white waves. As my vision adjusts, I realizes it's the light playing off the glistening walls. There's a candle, lit and already beginning to sputter out, sitting in the corner. It's the only warmth in the room. Outside, dusk has fallen again.

**_Double _**_damn._

"Are all humans as pathetic as you? Or are you just a _special_breed?"

_Don't answer him, Jane._

"I suppose you think you're better than me, don't you?"

_Stupid girl. Don't you ever listen?_

His eyes light up, and a cruel, mocking laughter booms like thunder, rolling easily off the thin, crumbling snow. My heart sinks, plummeting down into the depths of my stomach. I'm still not used to his ridiculing, his constant demoralization. It still stabs like a knife and the hurt digs down deep until it stirs up the tears in my eyes again. God, I wish I didn't want to cry every time he reminds me how feeble I am here, how low my chances of survival, of seeing my friends and family again, of even leaving this _cave_ever again really are. Every time he opens his mouth, I'm reminded – of the fact that I am renowned for my intelligence and yet I can't even think of a way to get out of these chains.

"Oh, but my dear Jane. I _am_better than you. Haven't you learned that yet?"

"I'm a slow learner."

"From the way your race seems to go on about you and your _research_, I would say the opposite."

"So you _have_ heard of my work?" I snort. "I wasn't aware you had any interest in the inferior knowledge of mortals."

His eyes roll. "_Please,_ don't be if I have the time to waste on your useless interests. I want to go straight to the source, Jane. I want _you."_

"What use am I to you?"

"Don't be so hard on yourself, my dear girl," he says softly, in that voice that makes my legs turn to jelly and my palms sweat into the snow. He lowers himself to the ground, wrenching my knees apart so that I am straddling his waist. Pressing his chest against mine, I swear he can feel my heart pounding like a drum, over and over, as his heat crests over me in soft, sensual waves.

He whispers in my ear, his breath tickling against the skin as if the words were touching me, skimming the curve of my earlobe, taking it into its fingers and rolling it between them. I squirm, my eyes wide and unblinking as I stare over his shoulder (at anything but him, at anything but the fact that he's so close to me staring me straight in the face), and I swear I couldn't move even if I wanted to. Sometimes I forget how powerful Loki is, that with just a word, he could turn me to stone, to ash, to _nothing. _And at once I'm afraid - _what is he going to do to me? Oh god, I don't want to die. I don't want to -_

_Snap. Out. Of. It._

"_You are _**_very _**_useful to me."_

Okay. Jane, breathe. He doesn't want to kill you. Come on now, be real - why would he go through all the trouble of kidnapping you just to _kill you? _He's not stupid. No, in fact he's the opposite. He's cunning and ferocious and there's a lot of anger in him that keeps him going. Yes, he's not going to hurt you. He's only doing this to intimidate you. To catch you off guard. And then, when he's got you on your ass, he's going to mess with your head. Just because it's _fun. _

Don't let him. _Don't let him get in your head, Jane._

Erik's voice. And I don't realize how much I miss his weary smile and the notes of his aftershave lingering on his shirt collar – little things about him, little things that I've come to find comfort in after my parents died.

I steel myself against him. The smell of him, the sound of his voice, his heat so palpable that it sticks to my tongue and I can _taste him. _He's like a ghost in my head and I can't get him out. Haunting. Slithering in and out of corridors where common sense and reason used to reign like kings.

_Don't let him in, Jane._

_I won't. I promise I won't._

"Oh, and Jane?"

His whisper hangs heavily on the air, like folds of crushed velvet.

I struggle to keep myself as far away from him as I can with the length of his body eclipsing me in its dark, eerie shadow.

"I hope you are not _too_ attached to Thor, my dear - "

_No…please, don't._

"He is coming. And when he arrives at long last, I promise you – you will never see him again."

_He's going to kill him, Jane._

"But you knew that already, didn't you?"

Because_ you were an idiot._

"That you would never - "

_Because you went out in the rain and you let yourself get captured by a madman._

"See your precious Thor ever again."

_It's your fault. Thor is going to die because of you._

I start to struggle against my chains as Loki stands. His laugh, even more malicious than before, peels through the frozen air and everything trembles around us. I wish it would cave in, the whole mountain. Just crush us down into the earth and let no more of this torture go on. At least I'd be warm. I'd be dead, but more importantly _he _would be dead, and Thor would be safe.

_I hate him. I wish I had the strength to kill him, but I don't. __  
><em>

**_I'm helpless._**

"No! _No!"_I scream, thrashing my legs, beating my arms against the wall. "You can't do this! Why are you doing this! _What have I ever done to you?"_

And then, the chains come free. They slip away from my wrists and I barely feel it, that's how fast it happens. My arms are a dead weight, slumping to the ground.

But in my fury, I lunge for him with all the strength I have left in my body.

We fall…

And much to my horror, start to tumble down the very steep hill that lies beyond the entrance to the cave...


End file.
